The Photographer has taken many high quality photos for Commons, and like many photographers here likes to take high-resolution photos by shooting lots of frames and stitching them together to create a panorama. However, this is very hard to achieve (particularly for interiors and buildings) without having parallax errors that spoil the stitching. The best way is to use a special panoramic head on a tripod. In addition to high-resolution photos, The Photographer also wants to create 180 × 360° panoramas which require a special viewer to appreciate them. Several photographers on Commons are now creating such images and they are a great way to explore a scene as though one is really there. I think that in order to photograph these 180 × 360° images, The Photographer needs to set his goals a little higher and aim to buy an 8mm fisheye lens in addition to the panoramic tripod head.

If I'd nominate a sound file, then where should it even be nominated? In here or there? What's the situation with sound files anyway and should there be something done with that topic? Kruusamägi (talk) 21:42, 23 November 2016 (UTC)

Over there, but probably no one will vote on it. It's been inactive for a long time. -- King of♥♦♣ ♠ 02:40, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

That's the thing, that there doesn't seem to be any point of nominating it over there.

Should there even be any more focus on sound files? I could likely get some interesting ones to Commons, but if there's no interest towards this kind of stuff, then I don't see much point of wasting my time on it. Kruusamägi (talk) 08:24, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

It would be worth restarting, or considering reworking FP into Featured Media... We do loe out on things because we don't ask for them. Adam Cuerden (talk) 12:06, 24 November 2016 (UTC)

I was also thinking about featured media:

revitalization of featured sounds doesn't seem probable, but when something gets added to it, it could change that;

changing that seems somewhat useful, as there is lot of media content besides images, that should be in Commons;

Hi, The FPC bot, which adds a pre-review template and archives nominations once reviewed is seriously bugged. It doesn't archive FPX or withdrawn nominations, and or even nominations reviewed before the due date. Daniel78 said that he won't do any change to the code, but he accepts patches. Anyone willing to help? Regards, Yann (talk) 16:13, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

I am trying to nominate this photo at FPC, but since it was previously nominated and received only the vote of the nominator, I had to edit that nomination, and now the title doesn't appear at FPC. I have no idea what I did wrong or how to fix it. Please help. -- Ikan Kekek (talk) 21:51, 5 December 2016 (UTC)

In a recent email discussion with User:Storkk, he suggested that feature picture photographers may be interested in Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/). This is a crowdfunding platform where fans sponsor creative artists to produce work on a regular basis. For some people, especially those who produce content on Youtube, it has produced a generous source of income. How well it would adapt to Commons photographers and those of us without six million Facebook followers I don't know. But I offer it as something you guys may want to investigate. -- Colin (talk) 21:43, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

I think that this is such an obvious win that I am really surprised this hasn't already caught on on Commons. How this would work specifically for photographers would need some thought, but I think it would clearly be worthwhile investigating. Storkk (talk) 23:39, 6 December 2016 (UTC) I realize it may be somewhat unkosher, but I mostly redacted a lengthy diatribe I wrote, since it didn't clarify anything further than what I've left as my comment here. It is of course available in the history. Storkk (talk) 23:48, 6 December 2016 (UTC)

Please could somebody explain why our current nominations are staying also in this page ?. Thanks.?--Jebulon (talk) 21:45, 7 December 2016 (UTC)

It happens whenever an image nominated that month for FPC is deleted, and CommonsDelinker mistakenly delinks it. I've BOLDly deleted Commons:Featured picture candidates/ as I feel the convenience of the redirect is outweighed by this annoyance which happens a couple times a year. -- King of♥♦♣ ♠ 00:54, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

A proposal to make notification about incidents where content creators are reported for sanctions at any administrative boards[edit]

I was away in last week (Dec 1-4) for a butterfly survey conducted by the forest department in Periyar National Park. I returned on 5th with flu and almost unable to edit and wished to take rest. Just glancing through the watch-list I saw Colin is being attacked by several people in COM:AN/B and then followed in COM:AN/U. Neglecting my poor health, I refer prevailing policies and clarified the people that undoing a post in one's own talk is not offensive. You can see my related comments in my talk. I also clarified to an admin that he is not eligible to block or warn him as he has a strong conflict of interest. It was only a few days ago Colin opposed his RfOS. Then another admin blocked Colin for a minor revert against him where he was clearly en:WP:INVOLVED. The problem is most policies and guidelines are defined in the master project English Wikipedia and here admins use them as they feel fit.

Yann unblocked Colin and everything seems calm. But that admin reopen one discussion and started another to ask scrutiny on his own action. Many people told him he was wrong and asked to move on. Slaunger gave long analysis stating where and how he was wrong. But instead of accepting it he made a remark "Ten words or fewer. There wasn't an explicit ten word requirement." which I felt insulting. I tried to close it he stared the edit-war claiming "This thread isn't closed until I say so." I may be bit hastily as I lost my patience. Any way upon his another revert I started an de-sysop discussion and left it to the community sake of community opinion.

There were other incidents too recently reported in admin boards involving other content creators like WPPilot, LivioAndronico, Mile, Archaeodontosaurus, ..., to name a few. Some incidents are merely when someone found a word in our file page and thought it is "advertising". I remember one case I recently found in COM:AN/B. In that case that content creator was deadly attacked for his use of his name in file page. In most cases most of the colleagues here were not aware of those incidents as most of as are not watching those boards.

So I think it will be a good practice if the people who noticed them can notify it here so that we can review the merits and defend if required. Otherwise we may loss many valuable content creators as the majority of people on those boards are maintenance volunteers and so the sample of opinion is compromised in most cases. Here in this particular case that admin made request at private IRC discussions too where most of us are absent.

I hope most of you watching this page; wish to ping a few of you. Note that this is not a request to comment on current case; this is a request to gather opinion from your side for future incidents.

Go for it, as long as it is done in a strictly informative manner and not for rounding up a gang to help a buddy beat the shit out of the opposition, or canvassing. Be sure to check the appropriate guidelines before starting something like this, compared to En-wiki, I think Commons is still a bit of an anarchy. cart-Talk 10:13, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Commons has no rules against canvassing, in some cases it is encouraged. So it would be fine to do here, or on any other discussion page that anyone feels is relevant. However it can easily boomerang or result in a !vote being challenged, so using notifications with non-neutral statements, such as including unproven assumptions, are best avoided. My view is that it's better to see canvassing on open forums and preferably on this project for our project discussions. --Fæ (talk) 10:23, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

"Compared to En-wiki, I think Commons is still a bit of an anarchy." Cart, you said it! I hope the current case will be last where I had used my entire energy against this anarchy. Now we are almost arrived into a solution! Thanks all for your wonderful support! Jee 10:28, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

I'd not seen any of the exchanges on blocks etc., but naturally I am familiar with the work of the editors involved, so Jee's suggestion sounds very sensible. Charles (talk) 10:31, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

This suggestion from Jkadavoor is, unfortunately, just the latest in a long line of simply terrible posts they have made in recent days. I'm not a prolific "content creator" and I don't care to enter my work in things like FP so I'm not well known as a photographer, but I'm certainly far from being just a "maintenance volunteer". I also strongly condemn the irresponsible approach Jkadavoor is taking in trying to segregate contributors to this site into "content contributors" and "maintenance volunteers", with the "maintenance volunteers" appearing to have less important or invalid viewpoints. I'm astonished that he's trying to insinuate that any photographer blocked recently has been the subject of biased or improper administrator at the hands of "maintenance volunteers".

The blocks of all "content creators" mentioned were discussed in depth and at extreme length on the relevant noticeboards, indeed, discussion concerning the block of Colin is ongoing now at the Commons:Administrators' noticeboard/User problems. The participation of all contributors to Commons, whether camera wielding or computer wielding, is encouraged and is always appreciated. I would also add, from my point of view, I feel we, as a community, routinely give content creators a little extra leeway and go out of our way to find ways to avoid having to block, to resolve problems without having to be draconian, and to find ways to unblock if a block has become necessary.

I can only speak for myself, but I'm sure all of my administrator colleagues would agree, please watchlist the main noticeboards, and routinely check through them. There are not just user problems, but also technical issues, copyright updates and other useful information which we try and propagate throughout the entire community as best we can.

Finally, given a bit of a diatribe about IRC from Jkadavoor; IRC welcomes all members of the Commons community - it's not private or secretive (any more than e-mail, Skype or others, and even then, being a chat room, it's probably more open). We're online on the Freenode network at #wikimedia-commons. I (and Natuur12 look after the channel for Commons users, appointing new channel operators and managing the conduct of users, and we would be absolutely delighted if more people from Commons used our IRC channel. There are webclients which can be used in your broswer (such as http://webchat.freenode.net/ plugins for web browsers such as ChatZilla for Firefox (and included with SeaMonkey) and stand alone programs like mIRC and Colloquy for most operating systems.

If you have any queries about blocked users, IRC or any other issues, you're most welcome to contact me. Nick (talk) 16:19, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Nick, you made sensible points above, but claiming that “IRC welcomes all members of the Commons community” can't be true in any way. The #wikimedia-commons chan has specially a toxic atmosphere for years, with some people insulting frankly whoever they dislike without any blame by anyone. As it happened again today, you post here at the same time is very disappointing. Regards, Yann (talk) 16:55, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Nick I agree with Yann here wrt to the IRC environment. I have tried a few times to logon but found that nothing happened there of relevance for me regarding my work on Commons, but a lot personal nasty comments towards certain users from a closed club of IRC regulars forming a hostile enviroment. I may have been just unlucky, I do not know, but I certainly did not feel tempted to try again. -- Slaunger (talk) 18:27, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Nick, nowhere here I said maintenance volunteers are less important compared to content creators. But we the content creators are mostly off-line and sometimes even away for weeks and months. Many of us are not watching any administrative boards; due to several reasons. So I asked this community about an easier way how we can be notified about cases we involved. I explained the need by mentioning the background, mentioning several recent incidents. I explicitly asked them not to comment on current case. So your accusation against me is highly inappropriate.

And I didn't own this community. There can be people like me or not. They are free to express their opinion case to case. Today I knew one of my colleague had passed away from a comment here. We would like to share such info also through this board. We are also humans. We've feelings. Sharing is good.

The warning to Colin and silence to this is self explaining. That post also contains the attitude of many about content creators. They only counts the edits here. They have no idea how much effort is behind every work. It is not their problem; just ignorance.

Jkadavoor, yet again you jump to conclusions about my motives without any evidence, a regular feature of your behaviour which absolutely has to cease going forward: Your warning to Colin and silence to this is self explaining. is a personal attack and unwarranted allegation which you need to redact as a matter of some urgency. I've been out of the house all day yesterday and most of the day today, I had not even opened up COM:AN/U until you linked above. Nick (talk) 17:06, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

Then take time to read everything before rushing to here. There is no emergency as the above discussion is explicitly about future cases. Jee 17:17, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

The proposal itself is not credible - we have several noticeboards where the blocks and behavioural issues of users are discussed, interested parties are asked to watchlist these noticeboards if they are interested in the blocks of "content creators". I fail to see how having additional noticeboards is going to ease things; quite the opposite is likely to occur, what would be incredibly useful is if more people were to take part in the discussions we presently have at COM:AN/U and others, not duplicate discussions across a new discussion board, or allow fragmented discussions to occur, where useful comments can be lost or important elements of users' conduct be missed (both for and against blocking).

What I think you should be trying to do, Jkadavoor, is encourage more "content creators" to watchlist, read and contribute to the existing noticeboards before suggesting additional noticeboards or notification services. The biggest concern I have with your current proposal is the potential for previous behaviour issues to be missed by those unfamiliar with previous blocks or reports, if more and more people read and stay up to date with users, reports of misconduct and blocks by reading a single central noticeboard, they'll be much better informed than if they get a notification from you, either from your dedicated noticeboard or from a message bot. Nick (talk) 17:28, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

(e/c) Nick, I don't make any judgement about your motive, but I can only support Jee's initiative at this point. Right now there isn't a welcome atmosphere on the board(s) you mention above. This is due to people like Stemoc (and may be others), which are allowed to make insults without any blame. When some people feel insecure in the current space, it is quite normal that they try to create a new space to exchange. If you are really serious, please do something to help create a place where anyone can feel free to work. Thanks, Yann (talk) 17:41, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

I don't disagree, the behaviour of Stemoc (which is about to be abruptly brought under control, one way or the other) isn't helpful (an understatement). I think part of the problem comes from the same people responding all the time, it leads to an unwelcoming and hostile atmosphere. That can be resolved, in part, by adding new faces and new opinions. Nick (talk) 17:50, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

(e/c) Although I think the proposal is made in good intentions, I am not too keen on the proposal by Jee, as I as concerned the notifications will be somewhat random, and it will lead to dispersed discussion and stimulate a them vs us silo thinking mentality whereby a greater picture is missed. I fear it will lead to trench diggin instead og bridge building. I do encourage all users interested in the governance of Commons to actively watchlist the noticeboard and thereby automatically be notified on the watchlist and participate there to get a more balanced participation on the boards. It is very often very discouraging though to even look there as Yann points out due to the hostile environment, and I must say that often a dark cloud engulfs me after enterings these boards if I feel I have something useful to add there. Like entering Mordor. Depending on your mentality it can really drain your resources. I think it is better to engage as an active individual decision, than segregate discussions into a sub-community spaces. -- Slaunger (talk) 18:00, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

I share Slaunger's view. Nick, very few of the participants at Feature Content (and QI, and Photo Challenge, and VI) are regulars at any AN board never mind even have the Village Pump in the watch list (and the VP is a hopeless noticeboard, with threads disappearing from watchlists within minutes). They are simply not interested in the politics or maintenance or dealing with problem users or problem content. And I cannot for a moment think why any of them would want to join IRC. I never have. But it seems that many of those who do content curation and administration hang out on those boards and on IRC. So we have two separate communities on Commons with very few (a handful I would say) who actually engage on both forums with any regularity. It is exemplified by the comments of those like Stemoc who think us content creators do no work here and are superfluous. If one can hoover up images from Flickr, etc, who needs content creators to directly participate here at all? This is not healthy and I don't have a solution. But I really don't think you are going to succeed in getting many photographers to participate at AN or log onto IRC. -- Colin (talk) 18:15, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

So if I understand correctly, you are saying this proposal can't work because many photographers will not participate in AN or log onto IRC?

If you think something sinister is going on on IRC, that is all the more reason you should join IRC to monitor. You could try it for a week. Just so you know #wikimedia-commons has 141 users (2-3 are bots probably) at the moment. You could also start a channel for photography you know. Something like #wikimedia-commons-photographers to coordinate issues relating to photography and commons, not just disputes. We do have an under used #wikimedia-commons-POTY as well which at the moment has 5 users (2 are bots). The point of IRC is simply conversation.

There are many who dont participate in the discussion boards because of past issues and experiences, this isn't the first time that high profile contributors have been the centre of attention in discussions. The proposal to in my opinion isnt a solution it'll make a greater divide in the community. The proposal would create a group of "protected users" who by the virtue of their FP success would give them an above the communities ability to be held accountable, we saw this with a crat a few years ago who was all but untouchable, even after the foundation stepped in the person continued to be encouraged. The only thing the proposal would do is confirm what many have suspected for a long time that there are groups/parties/cabals/clicks that work together outside the policies of commons and provide a type of immunity that enables them to do as they please. Gnangarra 00:11, 9 December 2016 (UTC)

I'm duplicating an issue I raised on the template talk page and village pump for maximum reach and because there are probably more experienced users around.

My talk with user:Charlesjsharp made me (even more) realise that we currently have issues with correctly conveying an immersive panorama (360 or even full spherical 360x180°) to the viewer. They are presented with an equirectangular view which is misleading and is not what shall be viewed. It's not optimal that there are 2 or 3 links to get the actual user experience the photographer tries to convey.

It's a bit frustrating because I feel we don't miss much to provide a much better experience. I'd like to have a template for that:

it shall be based on the current panoviewer, which is based on Pannellum

because it's based on pannellum, it would allow any framing and offer the possibility to drag right from the frame to move the point of view.

it shall fall back to a plain picture if the browser doesn't support it.

And in very short, it should be handled like how Facebook handles 360 panorama in the webpage and app (we have to keep in mind that wikipedia is viewed on mobile devices app too)

So my questions :

Is anyone capable of writing such a template quickly?

if not, I can try. In that case, can we use raw html in templates? I remember raw html could be enabled or disabled and I doubt it's enabled on Commons or wikipedias.

In case it would be necessary, where can I get special access to wikimedia's servers to fine tune tools or plugin? I don't want to harass the maintainer of Panoviewer.

Maybe this should be handled by MediaWiki software itself. Any clue to where I shall ask for help?

You could open a request in phabricator and ask for somebody in wikimedia tech and wikimedia labs. WMF is not open to community request and It could be done using some external tool. --The Photographer 17:34, 8 December 2016 (UTC)

@Benh: Can you link me to the template, I will see what I can do. -- とある白い猫ちぃ？ 19:03, 8 December 2016 (UTC)